


World Enough, and Time

by asuralucier



Series: Reminiscenza [2]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Nostalgia, Unrequited Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 20:53:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14480997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: There is a quiet creaking coming from the other side of the villa, but this house makes noises all the time. It doesn’t particularly bother me. Though now the creaking is all I can hear as I turn to face my wife. “I do think it’s a bit too late to sit them both down and talk about the birds and bees, Annie. Although I suppose --”Samuel and Annella have a heart-to-heart about Elio’s summer romance, and an old friend comes to dinner.(Note: Please readThe Loving Onefirst! Otherwise the dinner guest, as well as some other references throughout the fic, will make no sense.)





	World Enough, and Time

**Author's Note:**

> The fandom needs more Samuel and Annella. I am trying!

“Do you mind?” 

There is a quiet creaking coming from the other side of the villa, but this house makes noises all the time. It doesn’t usually bother me. Though now the creaking is all I can hear as I turn to face my wife. “I do think it’s a bit too late to sit them both down and talk about the birds and bees, Annie. Although I suppose --” 

Annella rolls her eyes as she gets into bed next to me. Her nightgown is thin; this particular nighttime is warm like all the others that came before. That’s what I enjoy most about these languid summers. I can see the whole of her body and I still think that she is beautiful. “Not that, Samuel.” When she is finally settled in, I put an arm around her and she finds her favorite nesting spot just a bit below my collarbone. “...I meant: do you _mind_.” 

Many years ago, someone once undid me with my own name; it is something that has never happened before or since. Sometimes, I still remember it. I don’t think it is a coincidence that the woman who has made my heart full can do the same with only a few words and a little shift in her cadence. It’s because we know each other; trust each other. “I don’t mind, Annie.” I don’t think I have to say anything more than that. 

“Have you ever seen Elio smile so much?” 

“I don’t suppose I have,” I’d like to think that Annella and I have always shared together a profound sense of humor that’s allowed us to wear the weight of world lightly on our sleeve, and yet perhaps such a humor seems to not have extended its stay within the blood of our only progeny, causing the world’s weight to chafe at his wrists from time to time. “But the summer will end soon.”

“Romances end,” says Annella sagely. “You can’t lie to me and say you weren’t a libertine.” 

“I can only imagine why you’d think that,” I say, pressing a faint kiss to her forehead. “I do need a little flattering from time to time.” 

 

_I write Elio when I get back to America although it does take me a couple of months to work up the nerve. I don’t know why I do; perhaps it is because I suddenly miss him terribly. It is not a feeling easily subdued in my own head with words, but the absence of him gnaws at me. I know that with an entire ocean between us, it is not anything to hold on dearly to an invaluable friendship, although I do not know if he feels the same._

Dear Elio,

I assume you’ve left me with your address because you wanted me to write. If nothing else, I want to have courage enough for that. After all, we are friends, dear friends. Only dear friends do inadvisable things in each other’s company, like speak about visiting a bordello! 

I have since graduated, and am looking for work to while away some time until I get to start my next degree. You’ll probably think it’s silly that I would like to go on to become a _Dottore_ , but I have the good fortune to enjoy what it is I do. I may be unsure on some days, but those days always seem to pass. I have picked up some translation work and keeping busy. I understand now why you always prefer to translate in your slippers at home. Such a small comfort in light of an ever blooming headache. But there are some things that edify me in my day to day, and for that I am grateful. 

If you have not graduated (although I still think you should and can) I hope you have found a path more suited to your talents. I think you will be wasted in journalism although you’ve probably have convinced yourself by now, that you’re a loser enough to make that the rest of your life. I hope you will find some time to dream in poetry too (though not necessarily Auden). 

Yours in Friendship,  
Samuel Perlman

 

“Have you ever had a romance end well?” I ask Annella.

My wife peers up at me. It is a little funny that we talk about this now, or perhaps it is the inevitability of such things. We could not have had talked about this when we were younger, or maybe we could have, we could have tested the boundaries of our spongelike hearts, bolstered by the once daringness of youth. “I like to think all of my romances ended well, in that they ended when they were meant to. Including this one, eventually, when we return to dust.” 

It is obvious to me even now, that Annella glides while my tread is at times weighted and careful. It’s one reason that I sympathize with shyness when I see it on a frame that resists its presence.Something else I do not like to admit is this: despite the burst of courage that I have tried to instill in my son’s heart through his namesake, it is still my blood and my teachings that flow through his veins. I’d penned that first letter as a gesture of fear, of cowardice that desired. The door that was once so daringly open to me has not shut completely, and I, like the cowering American that I am, who is not exactly partial to the Italian spirit, can glance into its sliver by the grace of someone else’s hand. 

I want better for Elio, my son. And yet I think it is precisely that he is _my_ son that sometimes his blood will be heavy. 

The creaking’s stopped. Annella and I laugh together after a brief moment of looking at each other; I don’t think we can help ourselves. 

 

_Annella finds the letter on my desk when I am trying to teach my son how to spell his name with building blocks that he can’t pick up by himself quite yet. In a part of me that is only a little secret from my wife, I tell myself that I wasn’t trying to hide anything._

_“I didn’t know that you were still in touch with anyone from Milan,” she says. “Your Elio’s got lovely handwriting. Maybe even a little bit like a woman’s. Don’t tell him I said that.”_

_She says that like she knows, I take a little bit of refuge by burying my nose into baby Elio’s --_ our _Elio’s hair. He lets free a bubbling laugh, clear and guiltless. But I haven’t got anything to be guilty about, “We only write each other once every few months,” I say. “I keep trying to tempt him away from loser jobs. If he’d put his mind to it, I think he could get a great teaching post, or even translate properly for this or that publishing house, not tied to provincial culture magazines, that sort of thing. But it is not as if he listens to me.”_

_“I don’t think you’d like him half as much as you do, if he listened to you,” Annella says with a rather metaphysical air; it is an air that I think might constrict around my throat if I don’t breathe more carefully, but then I breathe fine._

_She says, turning away from me, “I shall like to meet him if we’re ever in Italy again. I’ll put this back where I found it and make a start on dinner.”_

 

It so happens that Elio Colonna adores my wife and sometimes when they speak on the phone, I wish I were a more adventurous person. We’ve met on a number of occasions since Annella and I have moved to Italy with Elio, though he’s never been to the villa before. I would have invited him sooner, but Colonna disappears quite often like a man who still lives the life of a twenty-something is wont to do. Most of the time for months, but once or twice for years. Every time we have had the chance to see him, I never know who he is going to be. Annella likes to remind me that this is half the fun. 

He drives up in a smart red two-door this time, a ride that makes Annella cheerfully bemoan the fact that not only do we have two Elios, we also have two _muvi stars_ to contend with. The car does a great job of taking attention away from the fact that he has probably worn the same suit for a couple of days. After trying to explain to us that the car belongs to his girlfriend, who, in addition to being much younger, is an heiress with alleged autism (I don’t know if I believe that for a minute), Colonna kisses my wife enthusiastically on both cheeks and presses my hand. Both he and Annella rebuff me when I suggest he take up the title of _Dottore_ for the evening just for kicks. It sounds about right next to “Pro,” the nickname Oliver has for me. 

Inside, Mafalda pours us coffee. Colonna wastes no time telling us about his latest venture ghost writing a detective novel. Technically, his contract contains a lengthy clause that suggests that it would be a bad idea if he were to let on too much, but he doesn’t think that we’re too much into our dime thrillers the way he has to be (it is the plight of a loser!) and what’s a secret or two between good friends?

“I write on a strict schedule,” Colonna says, mostly to Annella rather than to me. “One paragraph per dram of cognac. It does help tremendously with discipline, _stella_.” The idea of Colonna adhering to discipline almost makes me laugh, but he holds up a hand to keep me from speaking my piece; it is as if he still knows me the way that young people are destined to know each other even when a good part of their lives have passed, “-- I don’t know what kind of things your husband has been telling you about me. While I’d like to refute them, I don’t think he has much of an imagination to not tell you the truth.” 

Annella puts a hand on my knee and gives it a squeeze. She leans forward and motions at Colonna’s coffee mug, “Please, help yourself! I think Samuel still expands his horizons every day. His imagination is ever crawling to its destination. -- Do you always write drunk?” 

He looks at me, and I am not going to think too much about his gaze and what it means, “It helps to take some words out of my head, else descriptions...you know how they get, they get everywhere and the other day I wrote about a poor idiot wandering along the beach under a ‘Canaletto sky’ during a burst of ill inspiration. That’s the problem with me. My idiots never seem like idiots.” 

Despite myself, I laugh, “True mark of a loser. You can’t even get stupid right, although I do enjoy Canaletto’s work. It troubles the mind, kind of like what a whetting stone does to a knife.” 

“...How did I know you were going to say that, Samuel?” Colonna laughs too, and for a moment, I don’t dare to look at Annella, although her hand is still on my knee.

The sound of cheery, chattering voices interrupts my plight just then, and all three of us turn to catch Elio and Oliver coming in through the front door. Their damp hair suggests they’ve both been for a swim. 

“Boys!” Annella gestures. As purely a favor to me, she adds, “Come here and say hello to _Dottore_ Colonna. He’s staying for dinner.” 

They come, and it must be the prerogative of young men too, to wear guilt so well. Oliver retreats into his usual bravado, that much is obvious to me. As for Elio, he tucks himself neatly into a practiced shell of indifference, something that I can tell amuses Colonna once he finishes shaking hands with both of them. 

“Not a talkative boy?” Colonna turns to me once they’ve excused themselves to go upstairs to freshen up before the meal. 

“I’m afraid not,” I say. 

“Clever boy,” Colonna claps a hand on my shoulder. Then he shakes out a cigarette and puts it to his lips. “He is already wearing my name better than I am.” A pause, “I’m sorry, where are my manners. Would you like one?” 

 

After a delicious meal of roast chicken, followed by a dessert of joconde sponge and Italian meringue, we all adjourn to the sitting room and I convince Elio to impress with his Bach (he nearly always does, even if I think he can stand to branch out in terms of his repertoire). He’s chosen to play for Colonna one of his transcriptions of Bach’s Fugue in g minor. I’ve never had the real chance to ask him if he takes to classical music, but given his myriad of other hobbies, I think I can take this one for granted. 

I admit, I have always been intrigued by Oliver by virtue of his application. It is always a fascination, what words people choose for themselves, to herald their coming. When he’d materialized at the villa as a real three-dimensional being, my curiosity had continued its natural course although such an occurrence had first surprised me at the time. My eye is drawn to him now, as his gaze in turn is drawn to Elio’s fingers. I think I know that look well, and for a moment, I don’t dare turn around. But I smell Colonna very clearly and very closely, he’s not changed the brand of his cigarettes. 

Even the line of Oliver’s pronounced jaw seems to call to desire. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it before, but I wonder to myself why I hadn’t. It seems now such an obvious thing. When the Bach ends, amidst enthusiastic clapping from Colonna, Oliver stands and moves to the piano, his thumb grazing the back of Elio’s neck. 

“I’m going to bed,” Oliver says. 

Elio does not move, “I’ll be a moment.” I can see the course of the touch running through his bones and his veins. My son is good about thinking things through, and such a simple touch tests that patience. 

Oliver hesitates, and then regroups himself after straightening up. His manner is not unlike a film star gathering himself to go out onto the red carpet. He salutes Colonna with two fingers to his temple, “It was great to meet you, sir. Good night, Pro.” 

Colonna more or less returns the gesture, with a smoothness that shouldn’t really surprise me. This is a man who engages with the culture, even if he has to disappear off into the countryside to do it and I don’t always hear from him. Turning his attention back to Elio once Oliver’s footsteps have faded upstairs, Colonna smiles, “Go on, you must know a little Beethoven, Elio? Play us some, and then we’ll release you.” 

 

Elio does grace us with the second movement from a sonata, the _Andante con Moto_ from Sonata no. 23. After that finishes, he too, bids us goodnight and goes upstairs. Annella pokes her head in from the kitchen and asks if we’d like coffee or a nightcap. 

“I would like an espresso,” Colonna says. “Though I should get going soon.” 

“Your heiress is waiting for you?” I say, light and easy. The voice is so unlike me, but It’s remarkable how I can sound, if he is nearby. I am struck with that remembrance, happening right _now_. 

“I’ll get that going for you,” says Annella. 

“She stays up late,” Colonna shrugs, lighting himself a new cigarette. “But I’m old now, I can’t keep up.” 

“I don’t think any of us can,” I say. “But it was good to see you. It’s been a long time, Elio.” I’ve squeezed years into that sentence. Years and words, but he must know. Elio Colonna used to know me. 

**Author's Note:**

> I didn’t think I was going to come back to this, but @woollen_pharaohs left me one of those comments that just stuck in my head and rolled around. I’d been wanting to write a fic where Samuel and Annella talk about the nature of Elio’s romance anyway, this seemed like a good excuse to do that and then some. (Also @woollen_pharaohs, I don’t think I managed everything we chatted about, but I wanted to stay true to the tone of the original without cramming too much into it all at once, I hope you enjoy!)
> 
> A handful of references: The title is from Andrew Marvell’s poem, which I think encapsulates CMBYN in a nutshell. 
> 
> Colonna’s last name is still from Umberto Eco’s _Numero Zero_ , and fittingly, I don’t think Eco ever gave Colonna a given name, so hey, it all fits! I’ve lifted a number of details again from Colonna’s narrative for Samuel’s Elio, including his being romantically involved with a much younger heiress who supposedly has autism, his difficulties as a ghost writer, and his under-employment as a writer for provincial culture magazines. 
> 
> “Canaletto sky” is a direct quote and refers to the Italian painter Giovanni Antonio Canal.
> 
> The presence of Beethoven is also an indirect reference to Colonna’s heiress girlfriend, who once snuck in to listen to Beethoven at a concert and was reduced to tears. However, the Beethoven mentioned here is the [second movement](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QImFm4Y_QPM&t=67s) from Sonata no. 23 (starting from the 11:05 mark) and bears the distinction of continuing onto the third movement via _attaca_ and this is one of the very few Beethoven sonatas that end in tragedy.


End file.
